Average horses don’t go on winning sprees that scoop a Kentucky Derby, a Santa Anita Derby, a Hollywood Derby and a Preakness Stakes. Nor are they only narrowly defeated in Breeders’ Cup Classics. Nor do they round their year off with the gilded laurel of Horse of the Year. Perhaps most tellingly, they don’t garner a Justin Bieber-like fan following either. Only very good horses do. And California Chrome, who managed all those things and more last year, is a very, very good horse indeed.
So when jockey Victor Espinoza, who guided the aforementioned superstar to those vertiginous heights, says very matter-of-factly that his mount in this year’s Derby has the potential to soar to even higher altitudes than “Chromie,” you would be forgiven for wondering whether the jockey himself might be proving a little oxygen-starved.
“American Pharoah, he’s special, very special,” says Espinoza about the Bob Baffert trained colt, his intended mount in the race, who many expect to go off favorite in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby. It’s a cool early morning at Santa Anita, the big day a week away. Decked in boots, riding hat and coat, Espinoza is fresh from giving his mount in the Kentucky Oaks, Stellar Wind, her last major morning workout - “she did it nice, real easy.”
Espinoza’s in typically easy-going mode, with a quick-release valve of a laugh that surfaces whenever the conversation steers away from the Derby and the simmering pressure of riding a horse widely seen as America’s next thoroughbred lord elect.
“American Pharoah [the misspelling is deliberate], he’s such a special horse. He’s been amazing so far, and I hope it continues. This year it’s different. I go there with a different horse, a different team. Everything is different. Completely different.”
The contrasts Espinoza refers to between this year and last are marked, especially when placed back-to-back.
Unlike that of California Chrome’s trainer – the septuagenarian Art Sherman who had a squad of only about 15 horses in his mom-and-pop shop stable – Baffert’s barn resembles an industrial complex of 90-plus horses in training spread between LA’s two remaining tracks, Santa Anita and Los Alamitos.
Prior to last year, Sherman hadn’t started a single horse in America’s most famous race during his near 35-year training career. Baffert, on the other hand, runs horses in the Derby as a matter of principle, and wins it as a matter of habit (Silver Charm struck gold in 1997, Real Quiet in 1998, and War Emblem in 2002, the last with Espinoza on board).
California Chrome was the first horse that owners Steve Coburn and Perry Martin owned outright, and on breeding alone, he never should have amounted to much. In comparison, American Pharoah’s owner, Ahmed Zayat, has been a major player for over a decade. He owned American Pharoah’s sire, Pioneerof the Nile, who finished second in the 2009 Kentucky Derby.
What is more, California Chrome was already a veteran of 10 races this time last year, dwarfing the five racecourse appearances American Pharoah has thus far made.
But don’t be deceived by numbers because, while we haven’t seen much of American Pharoah on the track, when he does appear, he makes a point of leaving quite the impression.
“The main reason I say that he’s special is because the way he broke his maiden in a Grade I on only his second ever start,” says Espinoza, referring to the way in which American Pharoah progressed from a rather lackluster debut fifth place finish at Del Mar at the start of August, only to return weeks later to claim the most important juvenile race of the Del Mar meet, the Grade I Del Mar Futurity.
“I don’t think I’ve ever ridden a horse that won a Grade I as a maiden. And the way he won, it was so impressive.”
The naysayers were out in force after the Futurity. So, American Pharoah did the only thing guaranteed to gag his critics: Prove them wrong. This he did by winning another important juvenile contest, the Grade I FrontRunner Stakes at Santa Anita, later that same month.
The Breeders’ Cup Juvenile looked American Pharoah’s for the taking, only for injury to intervene. But the abiding memories of those two prior victories were enough to secure American Pharoah Champion Two-Year-Old Male honors.
The next time we saw him, in March of this year at Oaklawn Park in the Grade II Rebel Stakes, American Pharoah had accrued a noisy following of acolytes who saw him as the second coming of Ra.
“The only time I’ve had a little pressure in the Rebel. He was out for a while. He’d never shipped out of town. The track was a mess, and he was the favorite on top of that. I was a little bit nervous. I had hoped that he could come back the way he won last year. He did. He won impressively. He had come back even better.”
On his next and last start, in the Grade I Arkansas Derby, American Pharoah treated the assembled field of Derby hopefuls with sneering contempt, cantering to an eight-length victory (imagine Novak Djokovic playing in the Boy’s Singles at this year’s Wimbledon for a similarly lop-sided contest).
Given the reputation the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile has garnered over the years as a graveyard for potential Derby winners – in 31 years, only Street Sense has achieved the double – I ask Espinoza whether he sees American Pharoah’s setback last year as a blessing.
“You know, I was thinking the same thing. He was going into the Breeders’ Cup as the favorite, but then something happened. And then I thought to myself, you know what, things happen for a reason. The Breeders’ Cup is good. But if I had to choose one, I would rather win the Kentucky Derby. Who remembers the Breeders’ Cup [Juvenile] winner?”
As for the race itself, it’s too soon to talk tactics, not through any fear of showing his hand too early, but rather through not having any hand to show at all – at least not yet.
“I would like to talk about it but I really have no clue right now,’ he says, laughing. “I think I’ll have a better idea the day of the draw, see what post I get.”
Whatever the draw, Espinoza expects his horse to ably cope with the rigors of the classic generation’s ultimate early litmus test of mind, body and soul.
“He’s a very handy horse. Last time, I got a chance to put him behind horses and he seems like he was better. He doesn’t mind. That’s what I like about him. He showed me last time he can go any way, it’s not necessary to be in front. I mean, he’s a racehorse, he likes to run no matter how the race sets up.
“I think I’m curious like everyone else to see how he will react,” Espinoza adds. “I have confidence in him because he has a good mind. But you know, we’re all in the same boat. It’s a 20-horse field, they’re the same age, some of them have run a few more times, maybe. But hey, we’re all in the same boat. That’s why they’re there – that’s why I’m there. I’m riding because I think I have a chance to win.”
Espinoza, 42, has been a mainstay of the weighing room for nearly 25 years. Prior to last year, he had long earned his stripes as a rider for the big occasion. But he says that the exploits of California Chrome ratcheted his career up another notch, with appearances on programs like David Letterman’s Late Show affording him the sort of crossover exposure few in in the increasingly arcane world of horse racing are now able to achieve.
“As for my daily routine, no, I’m still the same. I still have to work. I still have to come back and ride the horses of a morning, afternoon. As for my career, yeah, it’s changed a little bit from before. Over the years, since I’ve been a jockey, I’ve had my good times and bad times, like everyone else. It’s easy to get to the top, I think. But to stay on top is very difficult. I just think that I’m a really lucky guy – a lucky jockey really.”
As to whether Espinoza rides California Chrome when he makes his European debut, nothing has yet been determined, a win on Wesley Ward’s Hootenanny in last year’s Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot surely a significant tick under his name when it comes time to thrash out the details. But that concern is for later. First up is the trifling matter of Saturday’s $2m Classic.
Should Espinoza and American Pharoah win on Saturday, talk will immediately turn to their chances of claiming the Triple Crown, a feat Espinoza so nearly achieved on two occasions with California Chrome and War Emblem. Both horses claimed the first two legs before stuttering at the final hurdle of the Belmont Stakes.
Those experiences, he says, will prove invaluable as the clock tocks down to approximately 6:24pm Eastern Time this Saturday. Nevertheless, despite the lofty regard in which Espinoza holds American Pharoah, the bubbling confidence California Chrome inspired in him last year has yet to surface this time round.
This is due in part, one suspects, to the burden of steering a horse widely considered to possess the sort of ability, brushed with the divine, from which is spun the gold cloth of lore and legend. The other reason is surely to do with the sheer depth of talent present in this year’s contest.
There are a handful of horses in this year’s race with credentials that would in any ordinary year see them go off a worthy favorite: Dortmund, Firing line, Carpe Diem and Materiality. But whatever the reason for Espinoza’s circumspection, too much self-scrutiny would be akin to picking at a sore.
“I try not to think about that much. I just try to go about my days as normal. I don’t have to think about what I’m going to do or else I’ll go crazy. Otherwise I’m not going to be able to sleep. Hopefully, everything goes right, it’s still a few days to go, but if he continues to train the way he’s been training and gets to the race healthy, then that’s it.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Espinoza replies, laughing once more. It’s an open-ended comment that Espinoza doesn’t elaborate upon. Enough talking has already been done, enough questions have already been posed.
It’s time now for the answers.
